Yesterday we talked a lot about autoresponders. We discussed just how they fit into the scheme of things as far as the most important part of your online business is concerned … BUILDING YOUR LIST. In that discussion we focused mainly on the fact that your autoresponder is the repository of your list … it’s where a contact’s
information is stored when they “opt in” to your list.

The part of all this we didn’t touch on is the subject of today’s post: how do those contacts and leads get into your autoresponder system?

That’s where lead capture pages and prospecting systems come into play.

Now these are two different things, but they serve the same purpose … namely, presenting people on the Internet with a way to subscribe to your mailing list. Since they are two different things, we’ll approach them separately as far as defining them … then we’ll conclude by addressing the areas in which they converge as one.

LEAD CAPTURE PAGES

A lead capture page is a simple animal. It’s usually a one-page web page designed for the specific purpose of “capturing” the information of a subscriber. You’ve seen them if you’ve spent any time on the net at all. It’s usually incentivized in some way. What I mean is, the page is asking you to insert your information in exchange for receiving something you want.

For instance, you might come upon a page that contains verbiage and graphics, perhaps a video, that offers you a free e-book. All you have to do to receive the book is to insert your name and email address into a form on the page. When you do you’re taken to a page where you can download the information you requested.

At that moment, your information has just gone into someone’s autoresponder, and you’ve become a member of their mailing list.

You see how this works? It’s very simple, and can be used in many different ways besides e-books.

For instance, if you’re an affiliate marketer with some experience … enough to know that simply throwing ClickBank pages at strangers is NOT the best way to build an online business … you might use Lead Capture pages to build your list WHILE you market your products. You’d simply create a simple Lead Capture page with a subscription form that asks for a prospects information BEFORE they can see the really neat product you have for them. That way you’re doing several things at once: qualifying your prospects, selling your product, AND building your mailing list at the same time.

Otherwise, Lead Capture pages can be very simple and designed simply to entice subscriptions to your mailing list. I’ve used many Lead Capture pages in my online career, and made many myself. For a good example, you can visit my latest one. Just CLICK HERE .

PROSPECTING SYSTEMS

Now online Prospecting Systems are a bit more complicated. These usually take the shape of what is known as a “Funded Proposal” or a “Funded Sponsoring System”, and they are highly technical creatures. They involve a Lead Capture page that you advertise, but then things are much different.

The incentive in a good prospecting system is usually of the “business in a box” form, or the “we’ll teach you everything you need to know to make money online” Form … or the “build your business in a better way” form. The “Sale Page” is directed at those who want to learn to make money online, or those who want to do so more efficiently, and they provide a lot of assistance in that direction.

At the “Sale Page” or Lead Capture page, a new prospect will be told all that the system will provide them. The system itself will be either free, free to start, or very inexpensive, although there are some systems that can run up to $100 per month to use. The best and most effective ones avoid this if they can. When a prospect “opts in” at the Sale Page, the same thing happens as with a Lead Capture page … their information is deposited in someone’s autoresponder, and they have now subscribed to a mailing list.

After that page, there is much more involved with a Prospecting system than with a simple Lead Capture page. Within the system there will usually be training for “newbies”, “downline builders”, programs that provide ways to develop multiple streams of income simultaneously, possibly advertising sources … a wide variety of things depending on the system itself. The SYSTEM is the reason the prospect has opted in … that’s the main difference from the simple Lead Capture page.

You can see a good example of an online Prospecting System by visiting one of mine: CLICK HERE .

Now … where do these two disparate things converge? In their common and basic purpose: to entice a prospect to enter their information and JOIN YOUR MAILING LIST.

So it really comes down to something very simple here. If you want to do business online, and you recognize what the most important aspect of building that business is … namely BUILDING YOUR MAILING LIST … then you WILL NEED both Lead Capture Pages and Prospecting systems.

Here’s the rub: you can get yourself so spread out and so unfocused you can end up shooting yourself in the foot financially. You see, there are TONS and TON of providers of these types of things and the Newbie, especially, can end up financially harmed by it all.

Lead Capture pages are simple, and really you should be able to create your own. However, when we’re just starting out we may not have the technical knowhow … YET … to do so. We should be dedicated to acquiring that, but we might not have it at the beginning. At the same time, we want to be able to start building our lists WHILE we learn. That means, we will need Lead Capture pages provided for us so we can market those while we learn to create our own more personalized and branded versions.

For the Newbie, a lot of online prospecting systems can be confusing as well. Many take a lot of time to get going, even though they may be quite profitable once they’re up and running. For this reason it’s good to look at sources of both Lead Capture pages and Prospecting systems in one place.

Now we’ve spoken about web hosting and autoresponders over the last few days and what to look for in those. The fact is that many of those types of providers will also provide their customers with either Lead Capture pages or simple Prospecting systems as part of their service. That seems to me to be the best type of thing for the “Newbie” to look for here … HOWEVER … you’ve got to be careful!

The danger is that you can end up paying WAY TOO MUCH for all of it. When you start wrapping up web hosting with prospecting systems, or autoresponders with lead capture pages supplied, it’s easy to get hit in the shorts by absolutely CRAZY monthly fees.

SO … once again … do your “due diligence”. Shop around, read the fine print, and see what’s really out there. There ARE web hosting companies that supply these things. There ARE autoresponder companies that supply them as well. There are also companies that will drive you to the poor-house with their fees. There ARE others out there who supply it all at very reasonable prices.

Do your investigation and find out for yourself what’s best for you. You DO NEED both Lead Capture pages and Prospecting Systems if you want to do business on the Internet and build your list. You DON’T NEED to be raped financially to have them all.

Have a GREAT Day!

Steve Gaghagen
Internet Marketing Expert & Trainer

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